ISIS seizes three more towns in northern Iraq after routing Kurdish troops

In a statement, ISIS boasted of conquering “more important areas which were controlled by the pesh merga and the secular militias.” With the new territory, which the group described as “the border triangle of Iraq, Syria and Turkey,” ISIS strengthened its hold on territory that traverses the frontiers of Iraq and Syria, giving it an even greater ability to move fighters and weapons between the front lines of the civil wars in both countries.

According to security officials and residents in the area, the Kurdish forces were routed from Zumar, a town on the road from the Syrian border that also sits on oil fields, and then Sinjar. Sinjar, an isolated city in northwestern Iraq, has been home to a sizable community of Yazidis, Kurdish speakers who ascribe to a religion that combines elements of Islam and ancient Persian religions and who are considered apostates by Muslim extremists.

Later on Sunday, the militants captured Wana, a strategic town near the Tigris River — putting them within striking distance of the Mosul Dam, the country’s largest and an important supplier of electricity and water. The dam is on the Tigris River about 30 miles northwest of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, which fell to ISIS on June 10.